I booked a 3 night stay (May 1-4, 2009) through Continental.com.
Apparently the hotel bookings at Continental.com go through Travelocity.com.
On April 27, 2009 (4 days before my arrival date) I decided to cancel because of the Swine Flu epidemic.
Continental Airlines allowed me to cancel the flight reservation to Cancun without penalty.
I contacted Continental.com who in turn called the Hilton Hotel Cancun and requested that they allow me to cancel my reservation without penalty. The hotel refused.
I then contacted Travelocity.com who in turn called the Hilton Hotel directly and again the Hilton Hotel Cancun refused to allow me to cancel the reservation without penalty.
I asked the hotel person to allow me to re-book for another date wthout penalty. Again the Hilton Hotel Cancun person refused.
I booked the Hilton because I thought that it was a classy and reasonable entity.
The Hotel and their policy is unfair and unreasonable. Management at the hotel should be embarassed by this policy. The Hilton Hotel Cancun should be sensitive to their travelers. The Airlines have ackowledged a Swine Flu epidemic. Hilton Hotel Cancun has not. If this is how Hilton Hotel management acts with this issue. I can't imagine them being reasonable in other customer relations aspects. Beware.

My family and I made our 13th trip to Cancun and our 3rd stay at the Hilton and it was great as always. The Golf Course was in perfect shape. We upgraded to a junior suite which was really outstanding with a beautiful balcony with Jaccuzi. The infinity pool is really spectacular and most importantly the service around the pool was fantastic. A special thanks to Javier and Williams at the pool bar for making our stay even more enjoyable. The Hilton was really busy over the Easter holiday but it is so large that you really don't notice. We had family from Chicago actually move our towels and pool bag from our pool side lounge chairs and claim them for themselves proving that even in paradise there are rude people. We ate at the resort several days and the food was great. We had room service one night and it was completely over the top. We did the Zip Line in Selvetica and I would highly reccomend it. It was probably the best activity we have done in Cancun.

We played golf twice at the Hilton which is great and convinienct. We also played Playa Mujeres and Mayakoba, both are worth the 30 minute drives (in opposite directions. Playa Mujeres and Mayakoba are absolutely beautiful golf courses both in perfect condition. Both are Greg Norman designs and are must plays while in Cancun.

It was a little windy when we were there so the surf was a bit rough but it amazes me when I read the other reviews that say there is no beach. there is sand everywhere. We played catch on the beach and volleyball plenty of beach to enjoy along the very expansive beachfront Hilton.

We stayed at Hilton over Easter week and were very happy with the vacation. We had an ocean-front villa, which was worth the upgrade cost.

Room: The room set-up worked well - spacious, beautiful view, decent size sitting area. Bathroom set-up was okay, but dated - not as luxurious as the common areas. We enjoyed the balcony and the proximity to beach. Bed was very comfortable. I liked the simple decor that matched the view - which was the hero anyway. There was a safe in the room, but not one suited for laptops. The wireless connection didn't quite reach to our room, so had to use the hard connection (provided). I was able to connect to wireless right outside the room, but their set-up only allowed one user to be logged onto our room account at any given time.

Restaurants and Villa Lounge: Nothing too bad, but nothing all that great. We had sandwiches at the pool a couple of days and pizzas one night - both good. Breakfast in the lounge was good - fruit, meat, cheese, and a couple of cooked items. The bacon was really good - I can only imagine the calories in that! Evening hors d'oeuvres were on the low end of mediocre - cheese sticks, onion rings, taquitos. Also had chips and pico de gallo or guacamole each night. The corona and cocktails were a good way to start the evening though!

Location: I liked that you could walk up and down the beach for close to a mile or so in either direction. Water was pretty rough, so not a lot of swimming going on. The hotel is pretty far south - most of the bar/restaurant action was a bus or taxi ride away. Bus was easy, and we weren't indulging in the bar scene - but I don't think I would have liked it if we were going out every night.

Grounds: Lobby seems to have been renovated recently (at least based on some of the less recent pictures). I liked it a lot - tropical, casually elegant. The pool. was beautiful and relaxing, water temp was perfect. It was really hard to get chairs on a couple of days. Not entirely the hotel's fault - people staked out chairs early and then didn't show up for hours. Kind of frustrating - if everyone only took the chairs when they needed them, there wouldn't be a need to hog them unnecessarily!!

We choose Easter weekend because of a big birthday - I have to say while I would stay at the Hilton again, I would definitely not choose that hotel at that same time again. It was really loaded w/ families. Think this contributed to the aforementioned problem w/ chairs - and when we were in line at lounge or working w/ tour desk there always seemed to be someone darting in front of us or hovering over our shoulders as we were trying to transact business. There wasn't anything egregious, it just took a little bit away from the sense of relaxation.

All in all, I would recommend the Hilton - not for landing in the lap of luxury, but for a lovely, casually elegant, tropical break!

We spent 6 nights at the Hilton Resort. We stayed here 11 years ago and found the resort still top notch. As far as the resort goes, the service was great, We watched the waiters literally running to accomodate all the guests needs. The grounds and the pools were spotless. We upgraded this time to the ocean front villas, the room was 30ft from the ocean and we opened the sliding doors all night to hear the ocean. I was not impressed with the villa lounge extras, the cont. breakfast was ok, but we were expected to eat on a saucer size plate, quite annoying considering one slice of toast hung over the edges. The 5-7 snacks were pretzels and peanuts, and the person in charge of the drinks was rarely at the bar. Corona is on tap.
We took the grayline from the airport to the resort $60 but returned by regular taxi 6 days later $23. ? We never took the bus, but saw it running non-stop and knew it was not costly. We chose to take a taxi and the ride into the downtown was $8-$10.
The food on and off the resort was very reasonable in price. We ate at every restaraunt on the resort and never had a bad meal. We enjoyed after dinner drinks in the lobby area with some entertainment on a few nights.
As far as the beach goes, the waters were very rough. There were some rocks but a area on the norhern side is roped off. A life guard is on duty and keeps very busy making sure swimmers stayed in the designated area. I talked with a few people on the beach and they had walked down from other hotels because they either didn't have a beach or it was too rocky. My kids are 16 and 13 and had a blast in the waves. The water was warm. There were pleny of chairs to go around, however I did reserve ones early (9am)poolside. Pack a cheap blow up raft and give it away when you leave if you like to lounge in the pool. To rent one is $10 per day. When we return to Cancun, I will probably choose this resort again.